Entertainment
Raunchy Blockbuster On Netflix Features A Threesome Of Hollywood’s Hottest
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
It’s become increasingly difficult to find a decent action film: the genre has largely been subsumed by superhero slop and direct-to-streaming disasters, both of which combine sexless storytelling with forgettably murky CGI. But over a quarter of a century ago, there was a non-superhero action movie that featured extensive practical stunts and a sexy threesome of Hollywood’s hottest ladies. That film is Charlie’s Angels (2000), and you can now stream this raunchy action-adventure on Netflix.
The premise of Charlie’s Angels is that three women who serve as private investigators for a mysterious millionaire are dispatched to save a software guru who was recently kidnapped. Along the way, they must use all of their skills (which generally combine light spycraft with heavy butt-kicking) to get to the bottom of a mystery that just keeps getting stranger. Before everything is over, the Angels will face love, betrayal, and the one thing audiences can never get enough of: killer action scenes starring impossibly hot women!
The Sexiest Cast In Action History
The cast of Charlie’s Angels is filled with some of Hollywood’s biggest names, including Bill Murray (best known for Ghostbusters) as an assistant to the man who gives the Angels their marching orders. Sam Rockwell (best known for Moon) plays the kidnapped software genius, while Crispin Glover (best known for Willard) plays a mysterious hitman. Meanwhile, Matt LeBlanc (best known for Friends) and Luke Wilson (best known for The Royal Tenenbaums) both play love interests for the Angels, while Tim Curry (best known for Clue) plays the man suspected of kidnapping the software prodigy.
Of course, the hottest actors (in more ways than one) in Charlie’s Angels are the titular gals.
Starting with Cameron Diaz (best known for There’s Something About Mary) as a happy-go-lucky spy who’s a master of disguise.
Drew Barrymore (best known for 50 First Dates) plays a rough-and-tumble rebel who hates to play by the rules.
Finally, Lucy Liu (best known for Kill Bill: Vol. 1) plays a combat expert and all-around perfectionist.
A New Director Makes A Rockstar Entrance
Charlie’s Angels was the feature film debut for McG, and the movie’s financial success helped him cement his reputation as a superstar director. Against a budget of $93 million, the movie earned $264.1 million, which was surprising given that younger audiences weren’t familiar with the iconic ‘70s show of the same name.
Thanks to this beautiful box office, the studio released a sequel. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle reunited McG with the first film’s Angel actors. Years later, there was a reboot directed by Elizabeth Banks and starring an entirely new cast.
When Charlie’s Angels came out, reviewers generally decided it was a solid reimagining of the classic TV show of the same name. On Rotten Tomatoes, it has a 68 percent, with critics noting that the movie makes up in fun what it lacks in originality. They also praised the film for its unique combination of ironic humor, unapologetic sex appeal, and jaw-dropping set pieces, all of which give this film as much multi-faceted appeal as the Angels themselves.
Violence Has Never Been More Appealing
This is a very fair assessment of Charlie’s Angels: it’s not all that original, owing to the fact that it’s based on a decades-old show and cribs much of its hyperkinetic action aesthetic from ‘90s hits such as Blade and The Matrix. However, this early aughts film successfully synthesizes what worked for those earlier films while adding heavy doses of humor and more than a little cheesecake sensuality. The result is a movie that you can enjoy as an homage to the original series or as a fun action adventure in its own right.
The real magic of Charlie’s Angels comes from the women at the center of this story, each of whom imbues their respective Angel with a distinct personality and style. Other performers might have taken these breezy roles too seriously or gone too far in the other direction and created pure farce. Fortunately, Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore, and Lucy Liu are perfect at riding the line, transforming what could have been a forgettable action film into something that feels both vivid and visceral.
Will you agree that Charlie’s Angels is a raunchy blockbuster worth watching, or would you rather face the wrath of Charlie than watch this film? The only way to find out is to find your remote (hopefully, Bosley didn’t hide it) and stream this sexy throwback on Netflix. Afterward, you may never look at this sexy threesome of Hollywood’s leading ladies the same way, ever again!
Entertainment
Hurdle hints and answers for April 19, 2026
If you like playing daily word games like Wordle, then Hurdle is a great game to add to your routine.
There are five rounds to the game. The first round sees you trying to guess the word, with correct, misplaced, and incorrect letters shown in each guess. If you guess the correct answer, it’ll take you to the next hurdle, providing the answer to the last hurdle as your first guess. This can give you several clues or none, depending on the words. For the final hurdle, every correct answer from previous hurdles is shown, with correct and misplaced letters clearly shown.
An important note is that the number of times a letter is highlighted from previous guesses does necessarily indicate the number of times that letter appears in the final hurdle.
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
If you find yourself stuck at any step of today’s Hurdle, don’t worry! We have you covered.
Hurdle Word 1 hint
The edge.
Hurdle Word 1 answer
BRINK
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Hurdle Word 2 hint
Moody.
Hurdle Word 2 Answer
POUTY
Mashable 101 Fan Fave: Nominate your favorite creators today
Hurdle Word 3 hint
America’s bird.
Hurdle Word 3 answer
EAGLE
Hurdle Word 4 hint
A platform.
Hurdle Word 4 answer
FORUM
Final Hurdle hint
Cheapskate.
Hurdle Word 5 answer
MISER
If you’re looking for more puzzles, Mashable’s got games now! Check out our games hub for Mahjong, Sudoku, free crossword, and more.
Entertainment
Star Trek’s Most Ambitious Villain Helped Create The Franchise’s Most Complex Hero
By Chris Snellgrove
| Published
When Star Trek: Voyager first came out, the most fascinating character was the Doctor. While Robert Picardo’s performance was superb, it’s fair to say this character was mostly fascinating on a conceptual level. We had seen things like hypercompetent Starfleet captains and exotic aliens before, but what we hadn’t seen was a fully holographic chief medical officer. Voyager’s Emergency Medical Hologram seemed like the perfect embodiment of the Star Trek ethos. He’s a technological strange new world and new life, all rolled into one.
However, what casual audiences didn’t realize is that the Doctor wasn’t completely unique. Long before Picardo’s character ever sawed bones in the Delta Quadrant, Captain Picard dealt with another extraordinary hologram: Moriarty, the brilliant foe of the famous investigator Sherlock Holmes. Over on The Next Generation, Geordi LaForge accidentally created this villain as a sentient hologram when he asked the holodeck to create a challenge worthy of the android Data. Later, Star Trek: Voyager executive producer Jeri Taylor revealed that, in-universe, the holographic Doctor was created because Starfleet took advantage of the same accidental breakthrough that created Moriarty!
It all started in “Elementary, My Dear Data,” the Next Generation episode in which the titular android and Geordi LaForge recreated Sherlock Holmes’ adventures on the holodeck. Thanks to his positronic brain and his encyclopedic knowledge of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Holmes novels, Data is able to easily solve every mystery that is thrown at him. That’s when Geordi makes a seemingly simple request. He asks the Enterprise computer to develop a holodeck foe that could actually defeat Data, one of the smartest beings in the entire galaxy.
The computer obliges and creates a sentient version of Moriarty, Sherlock Holmes’ greatest foe. Following Geordi’s instructions, the Enterprise computer included much of Data’s vast programming, which resulted in the holographic character becoming self-aware. Moriarty ended up threatening the Enterprise on two different occasions, and Picard eventually got rid of him by trapping the unknowing villain in a simulation where he thought he had left the holodeck and could explore the stars. This was meant to be a happy ending for Moriarty, but in the show’s typically bleak fashion, Star Trek: Picard later showed us a different, more hostile version of this character created by a malevolent Section 31 AI.
How A Villain Created A Hero
What does all of this have to do with Robert Picardo’s holographic Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager? Elementary, my dear reader! Very early in Voyager’s development (the show didn’t even have a name yet), executive producer Jeri Taylor was inspired by Moriarty to create a new character. As reported in A Vision of the Future-Star Trek: Voyager, Taylor wrote down notes for a holographic doctor “who, like Moriarty, has ‘awareness’ of himself as a holodeck fiction. He longs for the time when he can walk free of the Holodeck.”
A few days later, she wrote down additional notes that contain a startling bit of Star Trek lore. “The Holo-Doctor represents a new, state-of-the-art technology which has capitalized on the serendipitous incident which created Moriarty, and has programmed a holographic character which has self-awareness of his situation and limitations.” While Moriarty is name-dropped on Voyager a couple of times, the show never mentioned what Taylor’s notes seem to confirm: that Lewis Zimmerman could never have created the Emergency Medical Hologram program if not for Geordi LaForge accidentally creating Moriarty on the holodeck.
From Villain To Leading Man?
If that’s not strange enough, there was a period of time when Voyager’s producers were considering making Moriarty a mainstay character on the show. As reported in Star Trek–Where No One Has Gone Before, Taylor’s notes mentioned that “everyone agreed that was a little too broad, and we couldn’t figure out why anyone would take him along.” After dismissing the idea, they decided “that having a holographic doctor with the full consciousness of being a hologram might be fun, and we’d never done anything like that before, except for Moriarty.”
There you have it, gentle reader. Without the character of Moriarty on Star Trek: The Next Generation, we’d never have the Doctor on Voyager. In this way, Trek’s most ambitious villain helped create the franchise’s most complex hero. Thanks to Jeri Taylor’s notes, we also know that, in-universe, Lewis Zimmerman would never have been able to create the Doctor if not for Geordi accidentally creating a sentient Moriarty so Data could have fun. In retrospect, this does make Zimmerman’s arrogance that much weirder. After all, he has a lot of attitude for someone who owes his entire career to the two biggest book nerds in the galaxy!
Entertainment
Moon phase today: What the Moon will look like on April 19
After days of almost (and complete) darkness, the Moon is finally starting to reappear. We’re currently in the Waxing Crescent phase of the lunar cycle, which means each night until the Full Moon we’ll see it get more illuminated from the right side.
What is today’s Moon phase?
As of Sunday, April 19, the Moon phase is Waxing Crescent. Tonight, 5% of the moon will be lit up, according to NASA’s Daily Moon Guide.
Despite more of it now being illuminated, the percentage of surface is still too little to be able to spot any surface details. Check again tomorrow.
When is the next Full Moon?
The next Full Moon is predicted to take place on May 1, the first of two in May.
What are Moon phases?
NASA states that the Moon takes about 29.5 days to orbit Earth, during which it passes through eight distinct phases. We always see the same side of the Moon, but the amount of sunlight reflecting off it changes as it moves along its orbit, creating the familiar pattern of full, partial, and crescent shapes. We call these the lunar phases, and there are eight in total:
New Moon – The Moon is between Earth and the sun, so the side we see is dark (in other words, it’s invisible to the eye).
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Waxing Crescent – A small sliver of light appears on the right side (Northern Hemisphere).
First Quarter – Half of the Moon is lit on the right side. It looks like a half-Moon.
Waxing Gibbous – More than half is lit up, but it’s not quite full yet.
Full Moon – The whole face of the Moon is illuminated and fully visible.
Waning Gibbous – The Moon starts losing light on the right side. (Northern Hemisphere)
Third Quarter (or Last Quarter) – Another half-Moon, but now the left side is lit.
Waning Crescent – A thin sliver of light remains on the left side before going dark again.
George Kirby the answer to Mariners beating Rangers this season
Hurdle hints and answers for April 19, 2026
